2025 Week 35 Plan

It's 1:31 PM on Saturday as I begin to write my way through this Week 35 Plan. I am finding that it is very helpful for me to separate my Office Management checklist review on Saturday mornings before lunch from my Weekly Planning session on Saturday afternoons following lunch and a nap if I feel I need to take one. Here are the seven steps of my weekly planning process as they currently stand:

• Step 1: Evaluate the Past Seven Days (Review My Weekly Plan, Give the Week a Binary Evaluation, Summarize at Least One Key Takeaway)
• Step 2: Review Mission (Blog Title) and Vision (Blog Description)
• Step 3: Review Areas of Responsibility (Blog Pages)
• Step 4: Review Project List and Add or Retire Active Projects (Blog Labels)
• Step 5: Confirm Assignment of Quadrant II Work on Each Project to Productivity Theme Days (Blog Pages)
• Step 6: Confirm Hard Appointments for the Week, Month and Quarter Underway (Microsoft Outlook Calendar)
• Step 7: Update Next Actions List as Time Allows (Microsoft Outlook To Do)  

 

Week 34 was another positive mental health recovery week. I struggled at some points, but the overall structure of my plan did not break down. 

In terms of key takeaways, I learned that trying to process my entire file crate of medical records on Wednesday just didn't work out. The emotional work involved is considerable. I talked about it with my therapist, and she very helpfully recommended dividing the medical records review up into smaller segments so that I don't get triggered and overwhelmed.

Then on Friday afternoon I had a hard time making progress in my Family Support Area of Responsibility. I got depressed and napped for a while instead of doing anything deep like writing. Then I started to ventilate to Gemini about the pent-up geopolitical stress that was weighing heavily on my heart. As the afternoon turned to evening, I realized I needed to cancel my Friday evening music session so that I could focus exclusively on my remaining questions and concerns about US and world politics. I stayed in bed and used my phone to dive fairly exhaustively into some of the latest headlines. I was an anxious and frustrated Green Democrat until about 4 PM, and then I was more of a pragmatic Republican until it was time to go to sleep. Was this an effective use of my time, or a relapse into ineffective coping? I need more data from future weeks of practice before I can make a decision.

I am still comfortable with my mission (Discerning a Christian Vegan Eremitic Vocation with a Psychiatric Disability) and my low-key vision (A Detailed Journal. Published 1-3x Daily at Peak Flow. Thanks for Your Visit. God Bless.)

I am also still comfortable with my seven Areas of Responsibility:

• Time Management | Center | Saturday
• Healthcare Patient | Midheaven | Wednesday
• Family Support | Imum Coeli | Friday
• Spiritual Direction | East | Sunday and Thursday
• Political Theology | West | Monday
• Hermit Economics | North | Tuesday
• Music of the Spheres | South | Evenings

Here is an updated list of my active projects:

1. Office Organization
2. Weekly Planning
3. Medication Management (Daily)
4. Personal Hygiene (Daily)
5. Physical Exercise (Daily)
6. Plant-Based Nutrition (Daily)
7. Sleep Hygiene (Daily)
8. Healthcare Appointments
9. Medical Records
10. Mom Caresharing (Daily)
11. Sibling Support
12. Dad's Legacy
13. Family Tree
14. Letters to Future Generations
15. Consultation with Mentors
16. Daily Prayer (Daily)
17. Religious Reading
18. Sunday Morning Worship
19. Inquiry and Catechumenate
20. Christian Zionism
21. UN Charter Navigation
22. Net Zero Hermitage
23. Basic Income Management
24. Vegan Wardrobe
25. Green Transportation
26. Christian Astronomy
27. Christian Astrology
28. Psalter and Psalmody
29. Thoughts on Music 

Most of these projects are not clear-cut outcomes that I can check off as complete within 12 months or less, i.e., David Allen's definition of a project. I might have to develop my own definition of a project. Maybe something like, "A project is a manageable subset of an Area of Responsibility." Eventually, I would like to be able to set quarterly and annual goals for each project, but I am not there yet.

Step 5 of my system is to confirm my soft calendar appointment of Quadrant II project work in each Area of Responsibility to productivity theme days and blocks. I think of every day as having three major productivity time blocks - morning, afternoon, and evening. This gives me 21 time blocks each week. I also think of every day in the week as having its own Area of Responsibility. This system is firmly structured and finely balanced, but it's not so rigid as to represent a written commitment in my calendar. Generally, none of this is Quadrant I (emergency) work.

Step 6 of my system is to confirm all of my hard appointments (appointments that I actually write in my calendar) for the upcoming week, month, and quarter.

The final step of my weekly planning system is management of my next action list in Microsoft To Do. I currently have 8 next actions pending in Microsoft To Do. Since I have 29 projects, it seems like I should have at least or around 29 next actions in To Do. Since it is 4:10 PM right now, let's see if I can get to 29 next actions by the end of this session at 5 PM.

Done. I now have 32 Next Actions in Microsoft To Do with 8 Daily Repeaters. I will try to keep it current in Week 35 and evaluate how this worked in my next weekly planning session.

Video in this entry: Does Time-blocking work with ADHD?